Then and now: Spooner Summit a logging mecca
Oxen bring logs out of the forest in the 1800s. Historic photos/Lake Tahoe Historical Society
With beasts and steam power, Lake Tahoe was raided for wood from the 1850s to the 1890s to build booming Virginia City and its mines.
Glenbrook was once a bustling lumber town.
Trains played a huge role in transporting lumber during the Comstock.
Lumber from the mills at Glenbrook traversed upward by rail to Spooner Summit where a flume then floated it down Clear Creek Grade to roughly the area where today’s Carson City Costco building stands on Old Clear Creek Road.
A flume at the top of Spooner Summit in the late 1800s.
From there the lumber was wheeled to Virginia City.
Old Clear Creek Road was the original Highway 50 route over Spooner Summit to Lake Tahoe until today’s four-lane highway debuted in the late 1950s.
Flumes eased the transport of logs.
Spooner Summit in 2014. Photo/Bill Kingman
— Bill Kingman